Frozen sauerkraut causes German motorway chaos

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Piles of sauerkraut tumbled out of a truck on a busy German motorway and quickly froze to the autobahn surface, causing a massive traffic jam near Frankfurt during Tuesday's morning rush hour, police said.

A truck carrying hundreds of packages of the famous German pickled cabbage delicacy crashed into another vehicle before dawn near the western town of Friedberg near Frankfurt and scattered its contents across the motorway.

With temperatures far below zero for the last week, the sauerkraut froze almost instantly and created impassable obstacles, causing traffic to back up for 10 km. The motorway was completely shut down for four hours while authorities struggled to scrape the frozen sauerkraut away.